Four years ago, Cottage Life asked readers to look for 14-foot sailing dinghies lingering at the cottage. You responded, which was no surprise to sailing historian Rob Mazza. He knew the boats were out there; he just had to find them.
Mazza’s goal was to create a record of the dinghies, now known as International 14s, whose basic design has been around for 130 years. Since then, he has gone beyond recording to collecting with the help of passionate sailor (and cottager) Fred Eaton. Of the 20 boats now stored in a warehouse in Hamilton, Ont., eight were located at cottages scattered from Bancroft to the Laurentians.
What’s so special about this boat? The early models were ideal for fun: family sailing or Sunday regattas on the lake. Though a foot shorter, those 14s were similar to Albacores, another cottage favourite. But unlike the one-design Albacore, the 14 is a development class whose rules encourage innovation in materials, hull shape, rig, and other components. Its designers are credited with inventing boom vangs, hiking straps, planing hulls, and the use of ticklers on jibs, all which are widely used in sailing today.
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That history makes the boats worth preserving because, “What you end up seeing is 100 years of learning in yacht design,” explains Eaton, who has raced at multiple 14 World Championships (and who purchased the warehouse that’s currently housing the collection).
When older designs became less competitive, they’d be taken to cottages. That’s the story of Chinook, built by Leo Flagler in 1946 and raced by Leo and his wife, Clare, until it retired to the boathouse at the family’s Paudash Lake cottage.
“It had always been very important to my father and mom,” says their daughter Maureen Flagler, whose family donated Chinook to the collection after seeing the 2022 article in CL. “We all treated the boat with huge amounts of respect. It became deeply significant,” she says.
“It’s like the family piano,” says Eaton. “People didn’t want to throw them out. When they heard about the museum, people realized, here’s somebody that actually values this thing.”
The collection will eventually be moved to a more suitable display space. For information about donating your boat, contact Rob Mazza at robertlmazza@gmail.com.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2026 issue of Cottage Life.
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